The following is an example of my daughter’s dialogue, spoken over the first ten minutes of pretty much any film that you could think of, that is suitable for children aged four. It doesn’t matter what genre it is, it will always follow the same pattern…

My son is very, very creative. He’s seldom seen without a colouring pencil in his hand, drawing up a storm. He’s got a great unique style too, something I don’t have, but can recognise. I like to think I’m OK at writing, but he blows me out of the water when it comes to drawing. Lately he has been turning his attention to his large collection of Lego, and the results have been fantastic. I should add that he didn’t use any pictures, guides or anything like that, they all came from memory and imagination…

His Optimus Prime robot, the body is the weak part – because I built it! – the face is amazing, he’s watched a couple of the films but that’s it, which makes this all the more incredible to me as he doesn’t own one single Transformer toy.

Batman Bobble head with a, in his own words, ‘tapered back’. I was so surprised that he knew the word ‘tapered’ that I didn’t immediately appreciate the craft that had gone into this.

A Hospital waiting-room for his figures.

They went through a phase of really liking all things Emoji, after watching that terrible, terrible film several times. This is ‘Laughy Tongue’ Emoji.

A great little vehicle, if there’s a sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and they need some tips on car designs, they know where to come.

I think this is probably my favourite, we started working on this together, as he wanted to make a Lego version of Midna, a character from the Zelda series of games (Twilight Princess to be specific). I gave up as I just couldn’t figure out how to do it, and went for a coffee. I returned and he’d created this – a fantastic interpretation by anyone’s standards. I love the hat, the eye, the colours…everything just works. And he’s only 6-and-a-half years old.

The two babies came downstairs one day to discover a very big surprise was waiting for them – their very own bath!

They were very, very happy about this and got in straight away!

They were pleased to be in the bath as they had been wearing the same clothes for over a year, and so they absolutely reeked.

They also wore those clothes in the bath, because that’s what you do in a bath isn’t it.

‘This is nice’ said Winky-Eye Baby, as he pretend-sploshed water all over his (her?) clothes.

‘Yes it is’ replied Onesie Baby ‘It’s about bloody time too. I thought my clothes were going to be classed as a biohazard if I let them get any dirtier’.

‘You do know there isn’t actually any water?’ said Winky-Eye Baby, with a worried frown on his (her?) face ‘It’s all just pretend. Don’t tell me you’ve been at the bleach again?!’.

‘It’s real if you wish hard enough’ said Onesie Baby.

‘Well, why don’t you shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one fills up first’ replied Winky-Eye Baby.

After their bath the two babies had a lovely game of ‘High Fly’, a fun game which involved them being hurled as fast as they could be at walls and doors, by their boisterous Mummy. She was a very loving Mummy, but she loved in a quite violent way, and so if the two babies were real she would probably be doing about 25 years-to-life in prison for infanticide.

Though if they were real it would probably raise more questions about how a three-and-a-half year-old could have babies.

After their game the two babies decided to have another bath, but were shocked to discover it had been stolen!

Who stole it?

‘It’s that fucking cat!’ said Winky-Eye Baby ‘As if it’s not bad enough that we get used as a teeth and claw sharpener by that thing, now we will have to clean out its hairs before we get back in!’

‘And we might catch toxoplasmosis’ he (she?) added.

‘What’s toxoplasmosis?’ Onesie Baby asked.

‘Its that disease from cat shit that killed Tommy in Trainspotting’ replied Winky-Eye Baby ‘Mind you he was a junkie with AIDS, so we should be alright’

‘Plus we’ve got no central nervous system’ added Onesie Baby.

The cat did look awfully comfortable though, and the two babies worried they would never get their bath back, but just then he woke up!

‘Oh I do hope he doesn’t bite my head again’ said Winky-Eye Baby

‘That’s not the worst thing they do’ replied Onesie Baby ‘I’ve heard when they get older they hump you’

‘No I think that’s dogs’ countered Winky-Eye Baby ‘Plus he’s having his bollocks off next month so it shouldn’t be an issue’.

Just then Mummy arrived, and the two babies had beaming smiles on their faces at the prospect of getting their bath back. Or they would have done if in fact they could smile, and weren’t just moulded lumps of rubber.

I go to the wrong door. This is the second time this week I’ve gone to the wrong door. That’s because today is Wednesday and it’s dinner-time. All the other days I’ve collected my daughter from her Maternelle at 4.30pm*. They move them after dinner-time you see.

They also change the teachers.

So the teacher I have met the other two days this week is not the one I meet today. Today is the day I meet her actual class teacher, not one of the other ‘cool-down’ teachers – the ones that seem to take them when all the hard, morning work is done, and they just have to keep them awake till their parents take them in the afternoon.

Or should that be evening? I only as as they keep saying ‘bonsoir’ to me. When does afternoon become evening? I would ask but I don’t know how to.

But I digress.

So this is the first day I’m meeting my daughter’s new teacher, and also the first day she is meeting me. As I approach the door a pleasant looking middle-aged lady is there to greet me. She looks at me quizzically at first and I peer in the door and pause.

She’s probably meeting lots of parents today for the first time, I think to myself. Lots of parents may not be able to pick their kids up at dinner-time, so it may fall to their other half, or grandparent, to collect them. I could trade her in, I think. Maybe get one of the less aggressive (when it comes to food) ones. Or the less violent (when it comes to cuddling me) ones. Or maybe I could get another boy? I’ve always fancied having two boys around the place.

My eyes scan the room. So many options.

But probably best not to pick one of the Chinese ones.

I’d save a fortune on biscuits, smoothies, marbles and psychotherapy-for-cats sessions (oh yes, I do believe that’s in the future). I wouldn’t have so many bruises on my arms, legs, torso, face etc etc. I would be able to eat my food, without someone else constantly monitoring the quantities consumed. Without someone else asking me, why I’m eating more of something? Why I’m having another one? Why am I wearing that top? Why am I having a shower? Why am I going outside? Why are we going in the car?

So I admit who I am, forever dooming myself to coming to collect this bundle of questioning fun, that eats all my food, makes me buy her marbles, and gives the best – if slightly violent – cuddles.

Oh well, if I change my mind there’s always next year’s new teacher….

*In case you are wondering my partner always, always drops her off in the mornings, and I take my son to his school, just across the road. My daughter is very clingy to her mum in the mornings and my son likes me to chase him to his school. I’m better at running. My partner is better at being clung to.

We did try it the other way round once. We call that day ‘The Day Of Tears’. We won’t repeat that.

Let me preface this admittance of a failure in parenting with another admittance: I don’t do hair. And when I say hair, I mean my daughter’s hair. There are two styles that I can do for her, and that’s it. They are:

The wonky pigtails/bunches – thus named because no matter how hard I try one of them is always slightly uneven, none of this cheerleader, perfectly balance business for me. I don’t even know how people do it, how are you supposed to see the angles? Multiple mirrors? The aid of aides? Robotics? Anyway so this ‘style’ will always generate quizzical looks from people.

The Pineapple/Coconut – grab the hair, as much as possible, grab a bobble, stick the hair in the bobble, centre the mass of hair roughly in the middle of the top of the head, stick the bobble on it. Voila: the Pineapple/Coconut.

My daughter doesn’t let me do her hair anymore.

Now her mum does it, in ever more elaborate, and stylish ways. Problems with that? Well, yes because you see, she may build all that scaffolding up, but when it’s time for bath I’m sometimes the one who has to dismantle it. One bobble, is no problem, nor is two, generally. Today however I had to contend with some Frozen-esque design that had THREE BOBBLES. The first two came out fairly easily, not putting up too much of a fight. The third one though? Well, see for yourself:

Don’t worry… It’ll grow back*.

*I would like to add that no pain was caused to my daughter, to my knowledge. That being said, she’s as hard as nails, so what may well have made me scream (like a little girl ironically) may have not bothered her in the slightest.

….you just put your lips together and blow. That was sage advice from Lauren Bacall to Humphrey Bogart, and seemingly easy to follow. I mean, everyone knows how to whistle, don’t they? I certainly do, although if you asked me who taught me I’d be stumped. This won’t be a problem for my son though as I have, seemingly without really meaning to, taught him how to do it.

It happened during a brocante – a French car boot sale that I’ve mentioned a few times before – that we were attending with my in-laws and their friend. They were actually selling that day, much to the chagrin of my father-in-law. He wasn’t too fussed about doing it, but that was nothing compared to his partner’s attitude. She had a stall, full of items that weren’t drawing much attention, but this lack of attention may have had less to do with their appeal and more to do with her stony face.

All evening long she sat there (well, until my son sat in her chair and promptly emptied his drink all over it, then she stood) with a face as long as your arm. ‘How’s it going?’ my partner had enquired, approximately 2 hours after the brocante had started. ‘It’s awful, I hate it, I want to go home’ responded my (almost) mother-in-law.

Yet even though the brocante wasn’t a financial success I will never forget it, as it was the day I taught my son how to whistle. I was sat there, whistling to myself when I realised he was mimicking me, and not doing a half-bad job. Every now and again you could hear a little squeak, as a tune desperately fought its way out from between his lips, like some kind of animal trapped in a pothole. We sat there for the duration, him trying again and again to make a tune, me earnestly watching him, and giving him pointers on his technique.

I should point out at this juncture, that I’m no whistling expert. I can do the three basic whistles 1) pursed lips 2) that one where you sort of whistle with your bottom lip 3) the ‘Wolf-Whistle’ as it’s called in the UK, which involves you rolling back your tongue, inserting your thumb and forefinger into your mouth and letting rip. It should be pointed out that the Wolf-Whistle is incredibly loud, if done correctly (If done incorrectly it just sounds like a wet fart), and so I had to wait for a lull in the people not buying goods at our stall before I demonstrated it.

I’ve no idea what the non-purchasers passing our stall thought of us, a young boy ostensibly blowing air through pursed lips into a middle-aged man’s face – but we didn’t care. He’d pretty much figured out the technique by the end of the evening (it was a late evening brocante) and he spent the trip back to the car, and the return journey, saying the same thing ‘Listen to me daddy!’ and there would then follow the sound of air being blown between lips with the odd – but increasingly frequent – tuneful note slipping out.

As I tucked him into bed that night and gave him a kiss he looked at me and said ‘Thank you for teaching me how to whistle daddy’. I closed the door quietly and then slipped back downstairs, already thinking I would have to write a blog about this occasion which, while not being up there with learning to ride a bike, still warranted commemorating.

The warm, fuzzy feeling lasted approximately 5 minutes after which I had to go back upstairs and separate my lovely son from his lovely sister. Great kids but, like so many things in life, left in close proximity to each other – which we have to do when we stay at the in-laws – they just fight.

And guess who has to go up an referee it, using a ‘whistle’ of sorts? Yup, muggins here.

Are you tired of endless questions from your kids? Do you grind your teeth every time one of them asks you ‘where are we going?’? Or perhaps, after telling them where you are going, you are going hoarse from constantly answering the follow-up question of ‘Are we there yet?‘ Or maybe you just want a relief from the constant stream of gibberish questions that children emit, every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day?

You could want respite from such quandaries as:

‘What’s a cow?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Why is that car there?’

‘Why are teeth?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why can’t I drink some cola?’

‘Why aren’t you and mummy married?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

‘Can I have some chocolate?’

‘Why can’t I have some chocolate?’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why aren’t we there yet?’

And many, many, many, many more…well fear not, because Philco Industries have created the all new Stupid-Bloody-Questions-That-Children-Keep-Asking-And-Follow-Up-With-Even-More-Bloody-Stupid-Questions-Till-You-Start-Thinking-That-Being-Sectioned-Might-Be-A-Good-Thing-Dampener-Board (name subject to change).

Simply insert this board in the car, tell the kids ‘It’s to cover the holes in the fence that the cat keeps using to go next door‘ and then sit back and relax, as the questions are blocked out* and absorbed** by the reassuring 2 inches of wood.

This faux-limo-style separation between you and your darling, adorable, lovable but oh-so-bloody-annoying children, will mean that journeys will fly by***.

There are many ways to learn the French language: go to college, listen to audio tapes, watch all Luc Besson’s back catalogue sans subtitles or get arrested for smuggling drugs into France – you’ll have plenty of time to learn the lingo then.

But for other, less obvious ways to pick up the language then read on as I – a fully fledged resident of the country for a whopping four months! – impart my meagre advice.

POWER RANGERS

Yes, you read that right, Power Rangers, the kid’s TV show featuring teenagers in lycra body suits that leave little to the imagination, fighting badly dressed aliens in poorly plotted episodes.

My French partner gave me this advice when it came to learning the lingo: ‘Just watch the news in the morning for half an hour, it’s what we did when we were learning English, and we soon picked it up’. I immediately dismissed this as I find the news A) Depressing and B) Boring. So I picked Power Rangers as an obvious alternative to this.

Yes for an hour-or-so a day (pah! more than the 30 minutes I would have spent on the news) I watch these 7 – 12 (I’ve lost track of how many there are) young kids fight the bad guys while talking in a context that I can understand. Each day I pick up more and more snippets and the phrases filter in. Not only that it gives me some daddy and daughter time, as she loves watching it with me too.

OK, OK, so I am now more prepared to respond to an international invasion by poorly designed monsters (and then fight them in a quarry/car-park/industrial estate), than I would be to say, discuss the Geo-political situation in the Middle East. Have you read any of my other blogs? That was clearly never going to happen anyway.

PLAY ONLINE GAMES WITH THE FRENCH

I play Belote. I play it a lot (copyright Phil, 2017). It’s available to play for ‘free’ on Facebook. I say free like that, in inverted commas, because they give you an initial amount of 2000 chips for nothing and, while you can get free chips everyday, there’s a definite sales tactic pushing you to actually invest in large amounts of chips.

Don’t do that, just get good at it.

Anyway, playing with the French is great because, as well as an array of emojis to indicate your mood at any given time, there’s also a text input option. This small window enables you to converse with your fellow players. And by converse I mean insult.

Yes, the only time this small text window is used is for insults to be hurled at other players. You will quickly learn what the following words are in French: Stupid, idiot, useless, dickhead, fuckwit etc etc.

Your education doesn’t stop at words though as the French are more than capable of string whole phrases full of insults together too, such as:

I went through a phase, back in 2009, of buying vintage Transformers. I had a man-cave, in the loft. Then I had kids. Bye-bye man-cave, bye-bye Transformers. Something good that came from this though – apart from having kids of course, ahem – is that in the brief period between buying and selling these items, they had increased in value and thus I turned a tidy profit.

I’m applying the same rationale to vintage video games, I’m buying them with a view to selling them at a later date for a profit. They are also much easier to store as they are just games in tidy little cases, not robots with 18 legs that will break if you look at them funny.

One of the great things about using eBay France is that – surprise, surprise – all the item descriptions are in French. Thus you will increase your knowledge of words you didn’t know you would ever have a use for, but that can come in handy in many circumstances.

A word of warning though, when selling your own items you may be tempted to use Google Translate for the item description, this will get the point across, but a true French person will spot it a mile away. One item I sold led to me conversing with the buyer (or ‘acheteur’ as they are called, ooh! Look at me!) in order to garnish them with more information, and he actually told me that I ‘Could respond in English if I preferred’.

DON’T BE A COWARD AND GET YOUR FRENCH PARTNER TO DO IT – TAKE THE ITEMS YOU SELL ON EBAY TO THE POST OFFICE YOURSELF

Yes, pretty self explanatory this one because, if like me you live with a native French person the temptation is to just coast along and get them to do all the ‘hard work’ i.e: interact with actual French people. You must resist this and force yourself to ‘get out there’.

It may sound like a scary proposition, but once you start doing this it gets easier, a bit like taking the training wheels off your bike. It also helps that more than likely the people you deal with at the post office will be the same people that deliver goods to your door, so you will recognise them, and they you.

The rewards you get from this kind of interaction are priceless. My favourite, this week anyway, was dealing with two different people at the post office on two different days. I had to return an item – to the UK – as it was faulty. But I first had to get the costing for it, then notify the seller, who would then reimburse me, and then I would be able to post it.

Two different interactions over two days with two different, and very helpful, French people, with little to no confusion on either side. All under the watchful eye of the work-experience boy who has picked a VERY bad week to be stuck in a not-particularly-well air-conditioned room.

Item successfully posted, language-skills and confidence boosted.

GO OUT TO THE SHOPS AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN AND TALK TO PEOPLE

This is not difficult for me, I have two kids, and they seem intent on eating their own body weight in bread, biscuits and fruit each day and drinking enough smoothies each week to drown a herd of cattle in.

When I say ‘talk to people’ here, I don’t mean strike up a deep, meaningful conversation – let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet! But you can certainly pick up on the little things, the social niceties.

Also just looking around and listening to other people while you are queuing is a great way to improve your lingo-skills. You will have a lot of time to do this in French supermarkets as, for some reason, they seem to abhor the thought of putting more than two people on the tills at any one time – even though our local Intermarche has an army of staff members.

Even just reading the different signs, leaflets, posters etc will aid you in your training. Does that sound patronising? Sorry if it does but this is the thing you must remember – everything you read, hear or see can help you learn, everything. Just keep at it, it will get better.

My daughter looks at me as I step out into the glorious sunshine, I’m eating a lemon-sorbet ice-pop, just the thing to cool me down on a day as hot as this. ‘You’ve had two of those today’ she says to me ‘Why have you had two of those today?’. It’s like this all the time at the moment, my daughter has turned into a food policeman/woman/child (delete as appropriate). You can’t put anything in your mouth – nothing edible anyway – without her noticing and commenting on it.

I was making her some food the other day, one of her favourites, sausage and chips, and I – as is customary for me – took a small piece of the second sausage, for what I refer to as ‘Daddy Tax’. This is a tax I levy on all foodstuffs (except cauliflower, bleurgh!) that I prepare for my kids, just a little off the top to keep me sweet (It is not, I repeat NOT ‘protection money’ in the form of food). She noticed straight away.

‘Why did you eat a piece of my sausage’ she said, her dark eyes fixed on me from beneath a furrowed brow. Was she in the room when I ate that piece of sausage? I don’t think she was, and as I break her sausages up into pieces, there shouldn’t really have been any way for her to notice. But notice she did.

I suspect that at night, when everyone else is asleep, she creeps downstairs and takes inventory of all the food in the house. She notes down all the different foodstuffs, the different quantities and then, if in her eyes you go over your allotted quota for the day, that’s when the interrogation, the questions, the accusations…that’s when it all starts.

Or I could just be being paranoid.

She’s always there, whenever food is being prepared, and if she isn’t, she magically will be as soon as she smells or hears it. It’s like one of those horror movie cliches, you know when you open the fridge-door, and then close it and there’s a mass murderer waiting, where previously there was nothing. Except it’s not a mass murderer, it’s a two-and-a-half foot tall munchkin who wants to know what you are doing with that pack of ham. And if you don’t respond then the consequences could be as dire as in the horror movie.

That’s if you equate being stared at for ten minutes, with the phrase ‘Can I have some’ repeated 278 times, to as bad as being stabbed to death by Michael Myers/Jason Voorhees/Freddy Krueger (delete as applicable).

She can also hear packets of crisps being opened from up to a mile away. I once opened a packet, downstairs in our house. I was alone, everybody else was off doing something else (together I should add, we don’t let our three and six year old wander the village on their own – we wouldn’t put the villagers through that). I hadn’t put one crisp in my mouth when I turned to see a pair of dark eyes staring at me through the patio windows.

They were my favourite flavour too.

I’m in the house on my own now too, and I think I might have an ice-cream. I’ll be ok though, she’s at nursery today. There’s no chance she can get me. Is there?

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw this: an Aldi in my new French village! Tucked away in amongst all the boulangeries, brasseries and other things beginning with ‘B’ was this delightful example of German budget-shopping. OK, so it’s actually ‘tucked away’ on a small industrial estate, between lots of trucks and a public toilet, but that doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, so I lied.

The interior is just a cosy as the equivalents in the UK i.e: not cosy at all, and in fact very, very grim. They do the job though. Another fantastic similarity to the UK stores is the legendary aisle of crap. So named, by myself and many other Brits, for the random assortment of goods that can be found there. The aisle of crap is always, always located in the middle of the store.

But as pictures paint a thousand words, let me take you on a tour of this cultural gem.

I will also add words too, so therefore will be painting more than a thousand words per picture. Aren’t I nice?

In case you didn’t know, that little bit of French means ‘low prices’. Note presence of an item of Star Wars merchandise. Aldi stores are regularly checked by upper-management in disguise*, if the aisle of crap is found to be lacking in at least 48 different items of Star Wars merchandise, the manager of the store in question is fired on the spot.

*Generally a middle-aged man in three quarter-length, khaki shorts, who parks his 4×4 in the ‘parent and child only’ parking space at the front of the store, to make sure he fits in.

Nothing screams ‘keeping up with trends’ like Halloween decorations in May. Place your bets now, will they still be here this October?

Books that nobody wants to buy are a common theme in the aisle of crap. In the UK it’s generally Lego Annuals that have had their ‘Exclusive’ Lego Figure stolen, and thus are doomed to gather dust till they are incinerated. Here it’s this interesting oddity, with a title that translates as ‘Football, Champagne and Evening Glitter‘. What does that even mean?

There’s a hint of sunshine in the sky, and you know what that means don’t you? SOLAR LIGHTS!!!!! There are approximately 4,567 variants of these per store. If the quantities ever dip below this figure then the manager of the store – they and they alone – must immediately restock the quantities. They generally do this while the queue – which had been snaking past the tills and up the aisles – heads towards the fire-exit.

Can’t decide between completing a jigsaw puzzle, or putting up some curtains? Well, why should you have to? Here at Aldi, you can do both. So don’t delay, come in today and within mere minutes/hours* you can be sat next to a window, while your freshly purchased curtains blow in the gentle breeze, knocking your half-finished jigsaw all over the floor.

*Dependant on queue-length

I want a treasure box for the kids’ toys, but I also want to strim the grass…if only the option of finding both of the answers to these quandaries was relatively close together…

Another feature of Aldis-worldwide are the cabinets crammed full of electrical items, with prices that have been plucked from the sky. They occasionally reduce the prices, with equal disregard for any kind of structure:

Yes, just stick a 50 Euro yellow sticker on it, that’ll shift it*

*I have never, ever seen anyone buy from one of these cabinets, here or in the UK. I suspect the manager doesn’t actually have a key.

The gap between the…cage/basket/thingies. This achieves two things. 1. It allows you to have a ten-minute stand off with a lady with blue-rinsed hair, who has approached the gap with her trolley at the same time as you, and will not budge to let you through first. and 2. Allows the goods to make the leap from pillows, to car accessories.

Can you think of anywhere else where sets of knives and bed-linen live together in perfect harmony, side-by-side, on their basket/cage/thingies? Oh lord why can’t we?*

*That noise you just heard was Paul McCartney picking up his phone to call his lawyers.

‘There’s a bit of space here boss, what should we do with it? Put some more shoes there? Or maybe some insoles?’ ‘Sod that, stick those game packs there for the kids’

‘Daddy, daddy!’ ‘Yes darling?’ ‘Why is that lady naked?’

Kill my partner, deck the garden or go on holiday..Kill my partner deck the garden or go on holiday? Choices, choices. Yes if you have ever been struggling with the difficult choice between upgrading your garden/burying your partner under the new decking or going on holiday/disposing of your partner in suitcases then come to Aldi. You can do both here!

And here, at the end of the mockery the legendary Aldi queue awaits you. I know what you are thinking ‘maybe if I just go for my 37th tour of the store all those people will go away’. But they won’t go away, and you know what? More people will come. But they won’t open another till, not till the queue reaches critical mass (90% of people in queue over 70 years of age, and the queue now has its own Facebook page).

And they want you to go for another tour of the store, because by that time your resolve will have been weakened. So that swimming pool for 15 Euros? The one you wouldn’t buy before? Your son’s constant whining will have finally eroded your will, and you will take it, from a cage/basket/thingy, from the aisle of crap, and put it in your trolley.

Then you take your place in the now even longer queue, and look at all the other unmanned tills.